Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Feeling Tired...

This is topic Feeling Tired... in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by TMan1969 (Member # 3552) on :

Lately writing has suddenly become a chore and sometime I don't even feel like writing. I wonder if I should bother at all, and then I wonder if I got the smarts for it all. I look at my stories and wonder if anyone would read them...maybe I should just take a break? But I can't seem to stop myself from writing - correcting/changing things here and there. I don't know - has anyone else felt this way?

Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :

Oh, pal, if you are at the stage where you don't want to write and can't NOT write, you got it bad. It may be terminal. face it, whether you want to be or not . . . you're a writer, and you're stuck with it. I hear they're working on a shot, but it is still being tested in third world countries. Watch out for flying monkees. P.S. it's not the brains, it's the heart. Buck up.

deb

Posted by Matt Lust (Member # 3031) on :

I personally don't believe I write well but that I do read well. I make this distinction because it influences what and how I write.

I don't write to write, I write to read. Above I want the stories I write to be readable, perhaps occasionally enjoyable and maybe even, once in a great while, memorable.

This is how I keep my spirits up when I worry about the quality of my writing. Have I written anything I would want to read? If the answer is yes then okay. If not, I need to fiddle with the story some more.

[This message has been edited by Matt Lust (edited June 30, 2007).]

Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :

Sometimes I have felt that way. Mostly, I can break it down to three moods/times/depressions that make that happen.

1) When I realize how far I've got to go, when I had been thinking that I'm on the verge of being "there".

2) When I'm really stuck getting back into the plot from a sidetrack that I've explored -- and I can't bear to cut it, but I know that the story would be better off without it.

3) When I realize that I love the authors that break/bend the rules, and am sick of sticking to them. It gets me even more depressed to know that I have to become a common-name bestseller to be able to write how I want.

There are no simple cures, but what gets me out of those moods is the simple fact that that my mind won't stop imagining things. It's a curse. I accepted a long time ago that I wouldn't be an overnight success. It's like anything else that you get good at, you've got to work at it -- especially when you don't want to. That is when, I believe, you show your true colors, and whether or not you are worthy of the payoff at the end. (I'm not talking about monetary payoffs, although they'd be nice, too )

So, I guess the relevant question is now, and always will be: How bad do you want it?

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited June 30, 2007).]

Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :

I think you nailed it, inarticulate one. once again, you are the coolest. Except for that Rowling blip.

[This message has been edited by debhoag (edited June 30, 2007).]

Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :

Maybe you should take a break. Everyone needs a holiday every now and then.

But if you do that, then you have to tell yourself you'll start writing again on such-and-such a date. And when that day rolls along, you start. Not a day sooner, or a day later.

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

"If you write, You're a writer. If you are not talented, You won't get published as often, or at all." - Orson Scott Card.

If you need to cut something, stick it into a separate file. You might pull it back in later, or use it in something else.

What I used to do was to save the file under a name, possibly with the date in it, and then open it fresh under the original name and make my changes. I could always go back if I did not like the changes, and start fresh. Also, being an "original" I could restart with that and use just parts of the changes to get what I really needed.

imaginative saving can be used to enhance the art.

Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :

Sure, it happens every now and then. For me, the best thing to do is make a change. Often just working on a different project for a couple days does the trick. Sometimes I'll dig something out of the vault and rework it, or start a different story as far from what I've been working on lately as possible. Sometimes I'll do the same thing with my reading, I'll pick a book that I normally wouldn't consider, something literary or a mystery; or instead of reading I might watch a movie one evening.

I think most of the time it means you've written yourself into a corner, and through reluctance or inability to recognize the problem, you've got stuck.

Just keep going and take what encouragement you can from the fact that you're suffering from a normal part of the process we all do.

A bit of advice I picked up somewhere that was attributed to Raymond Carver. He put a sign up that said, "Just tell the story." The most common thing that hangs me up is worrying about style or diction or the like and forgetting to tell the story.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Right now my writing seems independent of my exhaustion---which seems extreme right now. I'm always tired, starting to fall asleep on the job---but my writing just seems to go on and on.

I picked up my novel yesterday after a couple months writing and rewriting other things, and I've had about six ideas for stories in the past month alone. (I'll try to get to at least one of them.)

(As for sleep, well---it's really a factor of working nights and trying to sleep days. I hope to get some later today---thanks to the upcoming holiday, I have an extra day off this week.)

Posted by Rick Norwood (Member # 5604) on :

Daniel F. Galouye, a successful newspaperman and selling sf writer, wrote fiction in the fragments of time he could find when he wasn't not fully occupied with work and family. He looked forward to retirement, when he could write full time. Need I tell you that, as soon as he retired, and found himself with all the time in the world, he couldn't write at all.

We write because we write.

I've published 250 plus issues of a monthly magazine, Comics Revue. I've written more than 100 twice a month columns for sfsite.

The only way to do it is to do it.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

There's also the possibility that you are approaching a new level. Writing often seems especially challenging just before the writer makes a breakthrough.

Only you can decide whether you should take a break or keep at it, but as Balthasar says, if you are going to take a break, decide on a day to get going again and stick with it. Then force yourself to do every other thing you can EXCEPT writing, so that you will be anxious to get back to it when that day arrives.

Posted by lehollis (Member # 2883) on :

As far as my limited experience goes, I think Kathleen nailed it.

I was feeling really bad about my WiP for a couple weeks. First, I had to give it time. Sometimes, I just need to step away from the WiP. That can mean getting in a different boat and writing something different--even VERY different. (Every try writing romance? Maybe I should try to rewrite the end to Ender's Game and see what I come up with. Then, after some time had passed I sat down with Chapter 1--the chapter I was hating the most--and I got brutal with it. I turned off the Track Changes feature in my Word Processor, which still gives me nightmares, and I got mean with the chapter.

It turned out the first chapter was too much exposition where it needed dialogue. Today, I love the first chapter and I'm about to have a long talk with Chapter 2 and ask it why it can't be more like Chapters 3 and 4.

Then, I should probably right chapter 5.

PS. Once, I sat down to write the worst story ever. I did everything I could to make it awful. It helped me realize just how far I had come along.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

quote:
Writing often seems especially challenging just before the writer makes a breakthrough.

I have to wonder if that's what I'm going through right now. In the past three weeks, I've attempted two short stories and a screenplay beat sheet, and can't pull my ideas into a story. It's 90% there, but I can't seem to get my hands on that missing 10%.

Fortunately, I've been proofreading my novel, so the time hasn't been wasted.

Posted by TMan1969 (Member # 3552) on :

Maybe that's it - maybe a possible breakthrough. Could be, because I a particular story on my mind and its characters - all the time. The characters are vivid and everytime I try to deviate to another story or challenge - I write about them, or link the story to the existing one...I guess its my subconscious telling me to focus.

Thanks everyone for your encouraging words and advice.